Thursday, September 01, 2011

Tonight's ANC 5B Meeting

2011-09-01 19.38.45

This was the first public meeting since the financial scandal broke. It was a very animated meeting, with lots of big news. As I noted before William Shelton (former Chair of ANC 5B) resigned as Commissioner effective today. Here are the highlights:

-New Board elected. Comm. Regina James is Chair. Comm. Jackie Manning is Vice-Chair. Comm. Bernice Blackwell is the new Financial Secretary.

-Executive sessions of ANC 5B will now be open to the public.

-It's unclear whether they will have to pay the $5k+ that the staff person (hired by former Chair William Shelton) claims she is owed. She had no written agreement with the ANC. They will investigate their options and obligations . They've been paying their staff person (it wasn't always the same one) a little under $20k a year. I've never been very clear on what exactly the staff person did. The staffing arrangement is highly unusual for ANCs.

-Comm. Davis announced that she will resign (effective October 1st).

-ANC 5B will get a new account at TD Bank (once they get a partial reimbursement of funds from the ANC Security Fund).

-Commissioners voted to try hold a later emergency meeting to recall Comm. Bennett as Secretary (not as Comm). Bennett was not amused. I understand the frustration (gadfly issues), but this was perhaps not the meeting to bring this up.

-The Treasurer admitted that she dropped the ball because she was too busy. She stated that former Chair William Shelton (accused of stealing nearly $30k in ANC funds) told her he and the staff person would handle the financial report. She admitted that she never filed the quarterly report, or even saw one bank statement. She said she trusted Shelton, and assumed he was dealing with it. It was a "trust relationship" like a "husband and wife, or boyfriend and girlfriend."

-ANC 5B, as a whole, makes a commitment to transparency.

-They also almost adjourned the meeting because it got too crazy. Not everyone got to speak.

-Quote of the night: "My name is Kathy Henderson, and I cannot contain myself." She's actually a good speaker. Toastmasters?

For some reason the hashtag #ANC5B isn't actually bringing up all the tweets. Try my Twitter stream, and those of IMGoph and bogrosemary. Time period is roughly 7:00-9:30pm tonight.

5 comments:

IMGoph said...

the treasurer has to resign. has to. she admitted that she hasn't done her job all year. she can remain a commissioner, but if she doesn't have the wherewithal to actually do what she was chosen by her fellow commissioners to do, she needs to respectfully let someone competent handle that job.

eular said...

#microcosm

Anonymous said...

Why would Bennett be recalled and not Daniels-Brown? James cited issues with Bennett as being "taxing." How is that worse than $30,000 being stolen because someone didn't have the time to do their job?

The blatant disregard for public opinion that went on in that room was disgusting. They can tout that they want transparency all night long, but so far their actions are anything but that.

~Quincy

curmudgeon said...

Just out of curiosity, are 5B meetings run by Robert's Rules?

Cranky pants said...

A couple of points. Why would the treasurer stay as Treasurer if she admits that she didn't do her job. She didn't even look at a bank statement. Didn't she breach her fiduciary duties?

Do we have any evidence that the purported staff member actually did any work? Is there any evidence that she was actually an employee and not merely a phantom employee hired by Shelton to help line a friend's pocket?

@anon quincy- Why are you surprised? Look at what goes on in the DC government. They don't care about public opinion because the vast majority of the public doesn't care.